I frown. “You knew all of this, and you actually accused me of sleeping with him?”
“He had a photo of you in his wallet.”
I blanch. “What? He—what?”
“IA was going to question you as a suspect. I put them in check real quick when we found out Rodriquez was dirty. But there is much more to this story.”
“What more?” Jacob asks, his hand settling protectively at my back.
“Rodriquez had newspaper clippings in his apartment from a half-dozen of her uncle’s cases,” he replies, looking from Jacob to me. “Bottom line, Little C. He won’t be fucking with your head anymore. He won’t be leaving you notes. And there won’t even be a funeral or service for him. He’s being cremated, and his will specified no service.” Someone shouts for him, and he lifts a hand to hold them off, speaking to me as he does. “Go home. Rest. Deal with the DA tomorrow and then milk the Walkers for as many free hours as we can get to solve the next case. You’ll go back in rotation after the sentencing hearing.” He turns and walks away.
I face Jacob, but I say nothing. I honestly don’t know what to say. “I know,” he says, as if I’ve spoken my confusion out loud before he wraps his arm around my shoulder, and sets us in motion toward the car.
Once we’re both inside, we sit there, in silence for several seconds. “It was Rodriquez?” I ask.
“Why was that a question?”
“Because it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel done and yet, everything we were just told, says it was him. It just doesn’t feel final.”
“We’ll make it final,” he promises. “One way or the other. We both need to be at peace with how this ends.”
A long time later, I lay in bed with Jacob, both of us on our sides, facing each other. For hours, we stay that way, talking about everything that happened today, and tonight. “Maybe I’ll never be right with this ending,” I say. “It doesn’t feel like the right ending.”
“Then I think we should take steps to ensure your safety.” He brushes hair from my eyes. “Don’t rush back to your apartment. You’re safe here and I want you here.”
“You think I need protection? For how long?”
He wraps his leg around mine. “What I think, is that you belong here with me. Stay, Jewel.”
I could say no. I could leave and put space between us. I think about it, too, but the thing is, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want space. Tonight has reminded me that life is short and I don’t want to waste one moment of his or mine. “Yes,” I say. “Yes. I’ll stay.”
My reward is his smile, followed by his mouth on mine, his big body pressed close. His arms around me when I fall asleep, on a night when the finality of death would normally haunt me and keep me lying awake.
The very next morning my new life lessons begin: I’m no longer alone. There is no privacy in a building filled with the Walker clan. The slayer is no more. And I’m falling in love with Jacob.
Jacob and I are barely out of bed when the doorbell rings, and keeps ringing. Soon we have a living room filled with Adam, Blake, Kara, Asher and Sierra, all around the living room television watching the news with us, and talking about the billionaire baby killer as well as, the slayer, Rodriquez. At some point, I am aware that my hair is standing on end, I have on no makeup, well at least not on the parts of my face that it should be, and not one of them seems to notice. I forget makeup when my phone becomes community property and begins being passed around the room, as each person adds their favorite list of Walker numbers. I receive it back just in time to accept my father’s incoming call.
“Hey Dad,” I say, walking up the stairs to grab some privacy. “How’s the merger?”
“Hell, I tell you, honey, but that Blake Walker is a real asset. He’s going to get us to the other side of what looks like a hack but that isn’t important. You are. I talked to Royce. He said you guys found the note writer and all threats are neutralized.”
“Yes,” I say, not about to express any doubt about the threats, not to him, at least. “The note writer is neutralized. All is well. When will you be home?”
“Two weeks, at least. I’m going to stay and just get this merger done from here. I’m actually looking at a villa I might buy here in Italy. I’m thinking I might just buy it for you.”
“Don’t buy it for me.”
“It gives you a getaway from the badge for a while. I’ll buy it. You think about it.”
“I’ll think about it,” I agree, when we both know I’m not going to Italy. I have a job to do. And I have Jacob, but I’m not ready to tell him that the man he hired to protect me is now the man I’m falling in love with. That thought sideswipes me and stays with me until the moment I hang up, and find Jacob standing in the doorway, looking as big and addictively handsome as ever.
Looking like the man I really am falling in love with.
“Maybe we should move to your apartment,” he says, walking to the bed to sit down next to me. “The Walker clan won’t follow us there. Most likely. They might. Fuck. They probably will.”.
I laugh and the next thing I know he’s carrying me to the shower. “What about all the people downstairs?” I ask, as he strips away my shirt and then his.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll take a hint and leave.” He kisses me and it’s not long before we’re in the shower. It’s a long time though when I’m finally dressed, and so is he, and we head downstairs to find everyone gone but Adam, who’s asleep on the couch. We leave him there and head to the DA’s office.
By that evening, the same crowd joins us to curse at the TV as the rich billionaire CEO Bruce Norton and his scumbag attorney Davis York hold a press conference, vowing to find the monster that killed his wife and child. It appears the victims’ family will have to endure a trial.
Over the course of the next few days, I move many of my things to Jacob’s place, and despite leaving my furniture behind, an army of the Walker clan help with the haul. It’s on moving day, that I meet Luke Walker, the middle Walker brother and his wife Julie, as well as Royce’s very pregnant, very sweet wife, Lauren.
Two weeks pass quickly. Two weeks that change my life. Two weeks in which Jacob and I create routines. We run together. We hit the gym together. Jacob even cooks healthy food for me while I shove cookies at him. At one point, over drinks that become more drinks, he tells me about his sister. About her dying in a car accident, while her abusive boyfriend was driving. This only two weeks after she’d left him a desperate message for help, that he didn’t even get until after she was dead.
The next day, despite too much drinking, we start working a cold case together and in a matter of days, we solve a murder. Our success has my boss declaring me off rotation for good, calling me a part of a “special task force” that is me and the Walker clan. Two weeks and I am no longer falling in love with Jacob. I’m in love. And I have almost forgotten the slayer ever existed. Until the nightmare. One morning I wake up shouting at the man in the trench coat, but the adrenaline of waking up that way fades into Jacob’s kiss, and his warm body.
But it still doesn’t feel like we’ve had the right ending. I know Jacob feels it. Sometimes I see it in his eyes. I always feel it in his touch. Rodriquez won. We’re mind fucked.
It’s day fourteen since the bodies were found when my father decides that he’s staying in Italy for another week. It’s also day fourteen when I get the news that the lab results are damning for the CEO billionaire Bruce Norton. He’s going down for murder and the Walkers pop champagne with me. It’s day fifteen when Norton agrees to a plea deal. And on day sixteen, Jacob joins me in court for the plea deal to be made final. I leave my jeans on the hanger and wear a black pantsuit and heels, while Jacob chooses black dress pants and a Walker Security T-shirt. We arrive at the courthouse to the chaos of press and picketers everywhere. “Holy mother,” Jacob murmurs, leading me through the crowd, and earning my laughter. More and more, he isn’t a robot, or the Tin Man. He’s human and all hot, hard man.
Once we’re inside the courtroom, we sit behind the DA’s table and Evelyn is back in her lead spot as the woman who will take down Bruce Norton, and looking like a brunette babe as she does it. I love it and when Norton enters the courtroom, followed by Davis York, she turns around and uses sign language to say “I love you” to me. I return the love, all so readily and with that “I love you” still formed on my hand, Jacob closes his around mine, and looks at me. In the midst of the crazy courtroom, we have a moment, when no one else is there, when there is just two people, falling into each other, that only ends when the judge enters the room.
The proceedings are quick. Norton will do life, with a chance for parole in twenty years, which we all know he won’t get. The family cries. The bystanders cheer. The crowd starts to disperse when Evelyn motions me forward. “The family wants a word with you,” she says. “They just want to thank you. I have a private room.”
“Of course,” I say, quickly giving Jacob an update, before kissing him and following Evelyn toward the back room.
“My God,” Evelyn whispers as we exit through the side of the courtroom into a private hallway. “Who’s the hot guy you just kissed? And can I have him next?”
“No,” I say. “You may not have him. I’m keeping him.”
“Really?” she says, casting me an interested look. “Well now, there is a story I want to hear. We need to have drinks and celebrate your hot man and our victory.” We stop at a doorway, and she sobers. “Be ready to cry.”
I inhale and enter the room, and it’s not long before a family of four—a mother and father as well as two siblings—take me on an emotional journey that feels so very personal. I know what they are living. I know what they feel. It’s almost an hour later when I leave them with Evelyn. I hurry down a hallway and suddenly someone runs right into me. I jolt and pull back to find Davis York standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Detective Carpenter. You okay there?”
“I’m fine,” I say, stepping back from him, forcing his hands away.
“Good to hear it,” he says, shoving his jacket back to rest his hands on his hips. “But then it’s not a surprise. You must be very happy right now.”
“Happy isn’t a word I use when murder is involved.”
“Pleased then with the outcome.”
“I am,” I say, and I can’t help myself. I add, “You must be defeated.”
His lips quirk. “Defeated. You enjoyed that word in that sentence, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “You defended a monster.”
“With good reason. Have coffee with me and I’ll explain.”
“No. I don’t want to have coffee with you.”
“Okay then. No coffee.” His lips quirk again, amusement in his eyes. “Have a good day.” He starts to step around me and stops. “By the way. I don’t lose. Whatever the outcome, I always know it’s coming and why. Consider this one a gift.” This time, he steps around me and exits a side door. I swallow hard with the unease rushing through me. A gift. That’s what the note from Rodriquez had said giving me the location of the bodies. A gift. He just used those words. He knows this case. He thinks he’s so above the law, that he can taunt me and I can’t prove anything.
I pant out a breath and start walking, pushing through a door and entering the hallway. I dial Jacob. “Where are you?”
“Coffee shop by the door, what’s wrong?”
“Meet me at the hotdog stand at the bottom of the front steps.” I hang up and I swear I feel him now. I feel Davis York watching me.
I exit the courthouse and quickly travel down the stairs, and the minute I spy Jacob, I calm a degree. The minute I stand in front of him, his hands are on my arms, in the exact spots Davis York’s had been. “What happened?” Jacob asks. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I was right. Rodriquez wasn’t the slayer. That wasn’t the right ending. Davis York is the slayer.”
I don’t question Jewel’s reasoning on Davis York. She’s a damn good detective and I haven’t liked the man since that first day I saw him attempt to shake her hand. “Tell me what you need right now,” I say instead.
“To prove it. To end him.”
“I’ll gather the team,” I say, motioning her down the walkway, away from the courthouse, and toward the subway, and by the time we’re on a train, it’s done. “Blake and Asher will be at the apartment when we get there,” I say, motioning to the seats at the end of the car.
“I’m trembling,” she says, as we sit down. “I don’t think it’s fear. I think it’s just adrenaline. I don’t know. Maybe both.”
My hand comes down on her leg. “Tell me what happened.” I listen as she relays her encounter with York. The words “a gift” hit me hard. “That’s—”
“The same words used in the note found inside the card,” I say. “I know. If anyone would know where the body was, the defense counsel for the killer would certainly be the one.”
“Maybe he even helped his client hide the bodies.” She presses her hand to her face. “Rodriquez didn’t kill himself. York killed him. I just need to prove it.”
“Do you know of any connection he has to your uncle?”
“No, but there has to be something.”
She’s right, there is, and thirty minutes later, with Blake, Asher, and Sierra, sitting at the island with us, Blake finds the connection. “Holy mother of Jesus,” he says, drawing all of our attention. “We’ve hit gold. Get this. The only case Davis York has lost, aside from the Norton case, was seventeen years ago and it’s widely thought that the testimony of Detective Jonathan Carpenter sealed the deal for the prosecution.”
“I don’t lose,” Jewel repeats his words for the group. “Whatever the outcome, I always know it’s coming and why. Did he lose to somehow stay off my uncle’s radar?”
“You’re suggesting York had a reason to appear ineffective to your uncle,” Sierra assumes.
“Yes,” Jewel says. “Yes I am. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He led me back to my uncle. The case files have to be the answer. Somewhere in them, we’ll find Davis York.”
“Let’s hit the case files then,” I say. “Who’s in?”
“Me,” everyone chimes in and from there we divide them out and start dissecting them one by one.
Hours and several pizzas pass, and we have no answers. By the time it’s early evening, everyone is frustrated. “He’s here,” Jewel insists. “I know he’s in these files. And we know he’s killed at least two people. We have to find him.”
Blake’s cellphone rings and his eyes go wide. “Oh fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Right.” He stands up. “Lauren’s in labor. Royce is flipping out. No one can reach Luke and—” he looks at Asher, “can you get the car pulled to the front door? Royce needs help getting Lauren downstairs.”
“Yes,” Asher says, shutting his computer. “Going now.”
“I’ll go help with Lauren,” Sierra says.
The two of them head to the door and Blake sticks his Mac in his bag and looks at me. “Call me if you find anything. We’ll be back.” He doesn’t wait for a reply. He’s gone, rushing toward the door.
In another thirty seconds, Jewel and I are alone. “If you need to go, Jacob,” Jewel begins. “I can—”
“No way in fuck am I leaving you alone.” I kiss her. “We have some quiet time. The entire group will go to the hospital. Maybe the two of us alone will be the kind of focused magic we need.”
She nods, and I make us a cup of coffee to share before I sit down next to her and grab Sierra’s batch of files. The top six are rubber banded together and on closer inspection, not even murder cases. They’re all… “Fuck,” I murmur.
“What is it?” Jewel asks, turning to face me.
“Rodriquez officially killed himself.”
“No,” she says. “It was murder. You know that.”
“That’s my point. Right now, officially, he’s assumed to have kil
led himself. Meanwhile, there are six suicides that your uncle had batched together.”
“Suicides?” Her eyes go wide. “Why would he—Oh God. I see where you’re going now. Like in Rodriquez’s cases, they’re not suicides at all. They were just made to look like suicides.” She grabs my arms. “Wait. I have a thought. I need to get something.” She rushes away and up the stairs.
I follow her, and locate her at the bookshelves in the bedroom, holding the memory book, she’d stored on one of them when moving here. “What did you piece together?”
“Give me a second,” she says. “I need to read—oh wow. Wow.” She looks at me. “You have to see this.” She rushes to the bed and sits down, and I sit next to her. She sets the book in my lap and shows me the newspaper clipping of her mother with the umbrella. “What am I looking at?”
“The article published right next to it.”
“Community rattled by local woman’s suicide.”
“Yes, and read the second paragraph.”
“Husband suspects foul play, insists wife had strange events taking place. He’s quoted as saying ‘one day last week three people called her and said they were returning her message, but she didn’t leave them a message.’”
“On the day of the bail hearing, I had several people call me, and tell me they were returning a message. One of those people was Davis York. And that day was the only day I ever felt the slayer’s presence and Davis York was in the courtroom.” She stands up. “I’m ending this.” She tries to dart away.
I stand, catching her arm and turning her toward me. “What does that mean?”
“He wants to play a game. I’m ending the game. I’m going to tell him I know. I’m going to tell him I have him on camera at one of the suicide scenes. And I’m going to record it all.”
“He’s not dumb enough to buy that.”
“He’s not dumb enough to make a mistake we catch, or my uncle would have caught him. I need to shock him. I need to do this right now, tonight.”